Like Linnets in the Pauses of the Wind
by July Storms
Summary: Elsa doesn't remember much after that except for the bad things. There are flashes of happy memories, like Anna's new bike (purple and white with a basket and tassels and training wheels), and the morning light (pretty, dawn splashing over the rose bushes that line the drive and turn the fresh leaves on the trees pink-gold), but mostly she recalls the things that wake her at night.
1. when storm is on the heights

**Like Linnets in the Pauses of the Wind  
****01- (when storm is on the heights)**

(4,777 words/9 chapters total)

**Notes:** This is a modern-day AU where Elsa doesn't have any magical powers. Elsa's life from the accident onward, told in vignettes.

* * *

It's quiet, the morning it happens.

Nature is on the cusp of summer. Crickets chirp outside, and a light breeze passes through the screen in Elsa's window. It ruffles her bangs but she is asleep in the predawn hour, dreaming of the things she used to dream of, back then: chocolate cake and pretty ponies, green sandals and a sundress with daisies on it.

At first all Elsa is aware of is a weight as it flops heavily across her chest. She groans and tries to shove the offender off, but it whines, rather pathetically, "I'm bored."

She tries to ignore it, because it's still mostly dark and Mom and Dad won't be up until the sun is up, and she's pretty sure they won't be happy if they catch them downstairs watching television and eating cereal first thing in the morning. Again.

But the weight clamors over her and knows nothing of personal space.

"Anna," Elsa complains, "go back to sleep."

"I can't," is Anna's reply, but she's only five years old, and what do five-year-olds know, anyway? A mature eight years old, Elsa is sure that she knows best.

"Well, you should try," she replies, tweaking her sister's upturned nose before she buries her head under a pillow.

"I think we should play."

That's all it really takes, those words. Elsa is only eight, after all, and play sounds like fun. Mom and Dad will be upset to see cereal spilled all over the kitchen, and broken bowls from Anna's attempt to help, so Elsa shushes Anna and dresses both of them for the day in neat spring-summer attire: sundresses and sandals. She even combs out Anna's hair and ties it back into uneven pigtails before tending to her own, certain that this will lessen the disapproval on her parents' faces when they realize they've been up and about far too early in the morning.

* * *

Elsa doesn't remember much after that except for the bad things. There are flashes of happy memories, like Anna's new bike (purple and white with a basket and tassels and training wheels), and the morning light (pretty, dawn splashing over the rose bushes that line the drive and turn the fresh leaves on the trees pink-gold), but mostly she recalls the things that wake her at night.

Anna, laughing, "Help me go faster!" and the kind of _thump_ sound that haunts dreams forever.

Screams, which she only recognizes as her own in her dreams: "Mommy! Daddy?!"

The grill of a white car staring her in the face as she tries to lift Anna up from the ground.

Anna's favorite stuffed animal in the middle of the road, knocked out of the basket.

Anna, who isn't moving.

Anna, who is bleeding from the head.

Elsa pulls her sister's head into her lap and watches the blood stain the sundress she's wearing. She can see Anna's glittery pink toenail polish and she's still screaming for her mommy and daddy and they're running out the door, Daddy in his pajama bottoms and a wrinkled t-shirt, and Mommy in her pretty purple nightgown.

Purple like the bike that has fallen to the ground, handlebars bent and one training wheel still spinning.

"What have you done?" Daddy asks.

"I—"

It's all she can manage to say.


	2. for spite of doubts

**02- (for spite of doubts)**

The ride to the hospital in the back of Daddy's shiny black car is tense and Elsa sits with her skirt bunched up in her lap, afraid of getting blood on the seats.

She can't think, and just trembles there in the backseat, afraid to say anything, because Daddy's forehead is scrunched together and he's biting his lip and Elsa has never seen him look like that before.

She wants to ask why Mommy gets to stay with Anna, but she thinks she knows the reason why already.

It's her: Elsa. It's her fault, and so it's best to keep her away.

She should have made Anna stay asleep. She should have put a movie into the DVD player for Anna to watch. She regrets going outside, because the morning doesn't feel beautiful anymore—it feels heavy and thick and choking.

Daddy doesn't say anything after he parks the car; he just gets out. Elsa hurries after him, closing the car door softly behind her, because she has been taught to treat nice things with care. The hospital parking lot is empty but for them, and her stem-green sandals make a slapping noise against the pavement as she catches up to her father.

He puts one hand on her shoulder and squeezes once, but it doesn't make her feel much better, not like it does before a piano recital, because in his other hand he's holding the yellow stuffed cat that is Anna's favorite. She swallows thickly and fists her hand in the loose material of his pajama bottoms as they enter the building. There is a lot of walking, and talking, and then they're standing in a room. Anna is there. Elsa moves to take her hand, but realizes that the blood from her skirt is now on her hands, and shuffles awkwardly from one foot to the other, instead.

Daddy tucks Olaf under one of Anna's arms.

There are words she doesn't understand, and then she's waiting in the hall with Daddy, sitting in a chair that is tall enough that her feet don't quite touch the floor. Daddy pushes a magazine into her hands, and she opens it up, relieved that the blood has dried and won't stain the pages, relieved that Daddy hasn't noticed it yet.

She doesn't see the pictures, and can't concentrate on the words, but she flips the pages anyway, because it makes her feel good, because it keeps her from asking, "Is Anna going to Heaven like Grandpa?"

She's afraid of the answer.

* * *

"What happened?" It takes Daddy a long time to ask the question, and by the time his words reach her ears, Elsa's afraid to answer him.

But she does, because it's her fault and she knows that lying is wrong.

Her story is disjointed and confusing, but he seems to understand the basics of it between her, "We were playing," and, "She wanted to go faster," and, "The street and the car and the bike and _Anna_—"

"It's okay," he says. And, "It will be fine. Anna will be all right."

But he doesn't say, "It's not your fault."

And that's what Elsa wants to hear, even though she knows it's a lie and wanting to hear a lie is _wrong_, but she's starting to realize that there's probably something wrong with her. Mom and Dad would have been upset to see cereal all over the kitchen table, and another broken bowl; they'd have sighed at the television being on. But they wouldn't be in the hospital and Anna would be okay and clean, and there wouldn't be blood on her skirt.

She decided to play outside even though she's never been allowed to do so unsupervised before.

She doesn't know what that says about her, but it isn't anything good.


	3. light as on air

**03- (light as on air)**

Anna is all right. She hit her head very hard, and there is a cut from her forehead into her hairline. It was deep enough that the hair had been pulled out, and some of it had to be shaved.

They keep her overnight, just in case.

Before Anna comes home, Elsa sits with her parents in the kitchen and stares down at the wood grain of the table, tracing it with her eyes and keeping her hands fisted in her lap in the fabric of a different dress; the sundress with daisies on it has been thrown away; like a great many other things lost that day, it is not salvageable.

The conversation starts out simply enough.

"Elsa," Mommy says, hand coming to rest on her head, "I think it's time you had your own room."

She opens her mouth as if to argue, but shuts it again when she realizes she doesn't know what to say. She manages a quiet, "Okay," after what feels like an eternity.

After that, Mommy and Daddy say things like, "It's for the best," and, "Now you'll get to sleep in a bit longer."

Elsa knows the truth, so she just nods along. It is for the best.

"I'll move your things before we go to the hospital." Daddy ruffles her hair and hands her a box of her favorite cereal before he heads upstairs.

She lets Mommy pour the milk and she eats, but it doesn't taste good. It doesn't really taste like much of anything.

* * *

Anna's head is covered in a bandage and Elsa feels sick at the reminder.

Anna laughs and acts as if nothing at all has changed, as if the blood and fear don't exist for her.

She pokes her head into Elsa's new room and gives her a gap-toothed grin. "Elsa!" she says in a sing-song voice. "Come play!"

"I don't really want to."

"Oh." Anna's expression falls into one of disappointment, but it hurts less than the sight of her fallen in the street, less than the red darkening across her skirt, less than the spinning white training wheel and bent handlebar.

Anna is back the next morning, tugging on her hand. "Play with me!"

"I have work to do, Anna."

And she does. Homework, though she's finished in an hour. She spends the rest of the afternoon watching Anna from her window; she plays with Mommy in the backyard, and she wants to join them, but she's too aware of how much damage has been done every time she sees that white bandage in the afternoon sunlight.


	4. for thine and thee

**04- (for thine and thee)**

Weeks pass, and the bandage is removed, but the thick white scar remains. It twists up into Anna's hairline and Elsa has to look at it over dinner, has to wonder how much it hurt and if the hair will grow right over it.

Anna throws herself into Elsa's room and falls onto the floor, pleading, "Please come and play with me, Elsa. I'm _so_ bored."

"I don't really—"

"We can play ponies," she suggests.

And when Elsa shakes her head, she sighs.

"We can play Legos. What about House?"

All these games sound so harmless, so silly, but Elsa can't help but feel sick at the thought of agreeing, because she's sure there are a million ways that they can go wrong, that Anna can get hurt, that something _she_ does is going to hurt her sister—again, and maybe next time it won't be a scar on the head.

Maybe next time it won't be a visit to the hospital's emergency room.

The next time it might _end_—everything.

The blood and the spinning training wheel and the grill of the car were bad enough.

Elsa glances at Anna's forehead, where new hair, just a shade lighter than the rest, is growing in.

"Anna," she says with a sigh.

"_Please_?" Anna asks, giving her best pouty face. "Al right. We can play Pretend and _you_ can be the princess. Olaf will be the dragon this time."

"I'm sorry, Anna. Not this time."

When Anna leaves, Elsa locks her door.


	5. till the storm die

**05- (till the storm die)**

When school resumes in the fall, Elsa doesn't make friends. She pulls into herself and tries to please her teachers because studying and doing well on tests can't hurt anybody.

Her teachers send notes home with her to her parents, but she reads them first and knows what they say: _concerned_, _such a withdrawn child_, _counseling_.

She gives them to her parents, because that's what she's supposed to do, but when she is made to talk to someone, she only sits there. She doesn't understand why it is she has to talk to this stranger, so when she is prompted to talk, she says that she likes studying more than playing. She's not sure that it's even a lie, anymore.

Her classmates start making fun of her after that. They call her crazy.

What they don't know is that she's the one who let her sister get hurt. She's the reason her sister has bangs that cover her forehead.

Crazy? It's not really too far from the truth.

When the other kids return to the classroom after the winter break, Elsa stays home.

* * *

Homeschooling suits Elsa. She cleans the house until her tutor arrives and Mom goes to work. She learns new things until Anna gets off the school bus. And then she does homework in the evening. Mom helps her with mathematics and Dad helps her with English; he reads Tennyson from an old dog-eared book of his and tells her that someday he'll give it to her—maybe as a college graduation gift.

Anna talks nonstop about her friends and upcoming birthday parties over dinner, and even when Elsa starts eating in her room ("I have a lot of homework."), she can still hear it from her room.

It all works out nicely.

The house is always clean. Elsa's grades are always excellent.

It doesn't start to really hurt until she cleans Anna's room and finds a picture titled "Family."

She sees Mom and Dad, and Anna sandwiched between, and there on the side is someone else; she supposes it's supposed to be her, but the face isn't drawn in and she's standing flush with the very edge of the paper.

She puts the drawing down and doesn't step foot in Anna's room again.


	6. her empty glove upon the tomb

**06- (her empty glove upon the tomb)**

Years later she crams everything she owns into her graduation gift, a little blue car, and leaves for college. As she pulls on her seatbelt, she glances up to the rearview and sees Anna leaning out of her old bedroom window.

She's not sure when things changed, when an accident in her childhood—and she knows it's an accident, knows it because she's old enough to understand what happened, now—warped her perception of her sister or maybe just of herself. But it's there, it's real—the fear, laying beneath the excuses and the 4.0 GPA and the full-ride scholarship to a college on the other side of the country—and she can't push it away.

This is her reality.

Elsa averts her gaze and turns right at the end of the driveway.

* * *

Elsa graduates college and doesn't go home at all for any reason—not even for her own parents' funeral. She gets the news before final exams and she doesn't say anything on the phone to the woman who calls with the news except, "I-I can't…"

"Anna will come to live with me," the woman says eventually. "Don't worry about a thing. Just take care of you."

As if it's normal to say she can't go to her own parents' funeral, as if it's normal for her to not burst into tears or ask more questions. Exams shouldn't be as important to her as her own parents' lives, or lack thereof, and now, of all times, she knows she should be rushing home to Anna, rushing home and taking her into her arms and saying, "It's okay, I'm here."

But she doesn't know anything about Anna except what her mother mentioned in her e-mails: Anna attends a community college; she's made a few friends; there's a boy…or maybe two who are interested. After these little tidbits of information, her mother's e-mails always turned into, _What about you, Elsa? Is there anyone in your life?_

Now, of all times, she thinks it's better to stay away, better to concentrate on her final exams, better to graduate and go to interviews and get a job and get on with her life, because going home will give her too much time to think, and she's pretty sure if she has to put on a black dress, if she has to see her parents' dead faces in two black coffins side-by-side in the frightening silence of a funeral home, if she has to see Anna again for the first time in forever…

It will be too much.

So she buries herself in her studies and only when the last exam is over, only when her interview that Friday afternoon is complete and she is offered a job, _only then_ does she open her laptop and pull up the Internet and search for more information about the accident that took her parents.

It's easy to find—a triple-digit pile-up on the one major freeway that runs straight through the middle of Arendelle. Fifteen dead. (Two of them were kids, and she hates that it makes her remember more than she wants to.) One person lost a leg, another person a hand; fifty-four people injured—twenty-six of them seriously.

She closes her computer, fingers trembling.


	7. she must weep or she will die

**07- (she must weep or she will die)**

The day of the funeral, Elsa wears black, but stays inside.

She pours a glass of wine and goes onto YouTube to pull up the songs that her parents used to listen to when she was a child.

And she spends her day sipping her drink and pretending.

Pretending that everything is okay.

Pretending that she's a little girl again.

Pretending that her parents are in each other's arms twirling around the living room to some cheesy old song about love and happiness and happy endings.

But the tinny sound of her laptop speakers shatters the image, and the evening finds her with her forehead propped against her knees, arms around herself, because there's no one to hold her and no one to hold Anna, and she feels such a mixture of grief and guilt and responsibility that she can't help but cry.

She pinches her arm hard, and tells herself, "Stop crying," but she can't make herself stop.

So she pinches herself again and speaks louder, "Stop crying."

And again, "Stop crying! This is all your fault!"

Maybe her choices are misguided or wrong, or maybe she really _is_ crazy like her elementary school classmates had whispered to one another on the playground when they thought she couldn't hear them.

Or maybe she's just had too much to drink.

She stumbles around her apartment trying to keep it together, but the tears keep coming and her chest hurts; her fingers flutter or twitch or shake with _something_ but she's not sure what. She just wants it to stop.

She wants _everything_ to stop.

She calls herself names, half in her head, half aloud, and in the moment she thinks they're all true. She really _is_ a horrible bitch. A horrible bitch who didn't even go to her own parents' funeral, who didn't even go home to see if her little sister was okay, who was so scared of herself or of life or of _everything in the entire fucking world_ that she couldn't put herself last for even one day.

When had it changed from trying to protect Anna to trying to protect herself?

* * *

A few weeks after the funeral, when she's moved on as best she can and has accepted a job near her apartment, she gets a phone call from her father's attorney.

"It's about the will," he says.

She supposes he's waited a tactful amount of time to call her, even though she doesn't think tact should even apply to her after she skipped her parents' funeral to get drunk and cry for her own losses. Most of her wants to say that she won't return to Arendelle for anything, that the thought of seeing her sister again makes her feel like running even further away, but this is legal and it's important and she agrees to go.

Anna has changed. She's lost the baby fat on her cheeks, and she's wearing jeans and a cute top instead of a ruffly skirt and blouse. They speak only a few words before the meeting—an awkward hello over the free coffee provided by the office—and when it's over, when Elsa is named heir, they agree to meet back at their childhood home.

Elsa has the key, but she waits until Anna pulls into the drive to open the door.

Anna brings a boy with her; he's half a foot taller than her sister and lean, handsome.

"This is Hans," she says.

Elsa shakes his hand, but only because she thinks she should. She doesn't say she's pleased to meet him, because she's not—she doesn't know anything about him.

"We met at the park," Anna says, giggling. "He plays tennis at the courts there, sometimes."

"And he's here to…?" Elsa realizes her words sound tactless, but she doesn't care.

Hans gives her a winning grin that she doesn't quite trust, and he says, gently, "I offered to help move things. I hope I'm not intruding… If I am, I could go."

Anna shoulders him gently and gives him a playful roll of her eyes. "Don't be silly," she says. "You might be useful."

After the introduction, silence falls between Elsa and Anna; it isn't unexpected, but it's painful; Anna seems nervous around her, so Elsa doesn't dare say anything unrelated to their current situation.

Eventually, Anna breaks the silence by asking, when they are inside, "So…"

Elsa digs her fingers into the strap of her purse. "What do you want?"

Anna stares at her agape, the sleeve of her top slipping partially off one shoulder. Almost absentmindedly, she pushes it back up. "Really?" she says after a long pause.

Hans looks between them but keeps quiet.

Elsa takes a deep breath, and heads for her father's study. "I'd like Dad's books. If you have no need for them."

The next thing she knows, Anna's fingers are wrapped too tightly around her arm, and she's yanking her back, asking, "What the hell is _wrong_ with you?"

Elsa rips her arm from her sister's grasp and tucks her elbow against her side. "Nothing!"

"Yes there is! You missed the funeral! You didn't even—you didn't even _call_. You just, you left me here, and—" She shakes in fury or sorrow, Elsa can't tell. "What is your _problem_?"

Elsa is silent for a long moment. Her fingers hurt and her chest is too tight, and her voices shakes when she speaks: "You know what? Take it all. I don't want anything."

It hurts to turn on her heel, but she does it, turns on her heel and walks past Anna, her shoes clicking against the tile of the kitchen floor. Anna lunges after her, but Hans pulls her back.

For some reason, Anna looks betrayed. "You don't have any friends. You don't even have a _pet_; I know because Mom told me. They were worried about you, you know, worried they didn't get you help like they should have when you were younger." Hans lets Anna go and she takes a step forward, arms crossed over her chest. "You can't tell me that there's nothing wrong with you. What's the matter? What's wrong?"

"Nothing!"

"You can talk to me! I'll listen!"

Hans tries to say something, but Elsa ignores it. She ignores Anna, too, and walks right out the front door, tossing the key over her shoulder; she doesn't hear it hit the floor.

It isn't until she's a few miles away that she regrets her decision, if only a little bit. She wants Dad's encyclopedias and his dog-eared copy of Tennyson.

More than that, though, she wants _him_ back, and Mom, and she wants their things to be _their things_, not hers. Not hers to look at with Anna to decide who gets what.


	8. and fall upon her gilded eaves

**08- (and fall upon her gilded eaves)**

She drives home through the night and all of the next day. Her eyes are bleary when she gets home but she parks outside of a Petsmart and goes inside, anyway.

She's never had a pet because she's never had the time, but now she has a job instead of hours of schoolwork and classes, and she looks at the birds and the guinea pigs and hamsters and then sees the cats against the back wall in their little cages. They're brought in from a local animal shelter for a better chance at adoption, but they all look pretty sad, anyway. Some are sleeping in their own litterboxes, and some are rolling around with a littermate.

She's surprised to find her eyes drawn to a scruffy-looking orange and white cat. He looks old, and he stares at her, cross-eyed, through holes in the plexiglass wall. She can hear him purring.

She doesn't know why, but that's the pet she wants—_that one_—because he looks like he has problems, too, with his chewed ear and his crossed eyes.

"He bumps into things, sometimes," the shelter assistant says as she herds him into a carrier. "But he's really sweet. He likes to be held no matter how hot the weather is."

Elsa gets him home and lets him out of his carrier and he sticks to her like glue, purring and following her around the house and even into the bathroom.

"I'm really bad with names," she tells him from inside the shower the next morning. "I thought all night. I hope you don't mind being called Olaf. I looked it up to make sure it didn't mean anything really stupid. It means 'ancestor's heir,' so I guess that makes you the chosen one."

Olaf closes his eyes and curls up on the countertop. She can hear him purring from inside the shower.

And it makes her smile.

* * *

A week later, Elsa receives a package in the mail. When she opens it, she finds the dog-eared copy of Tennyson and a letter from Anna.

It says:

_Elsa,_

_I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said what I did at the house. I was worried about you, but I should have asked how you are, not asked what was wrong. Maybe nothing's wrong. I didn't mean to be cruel, but I was, and I'm sorry._

_Love,_

Anna

Elsa isn't sure what to make of this, but she hugs the book to her chest and then smells it. It still smells a little like Dad's study, and the flood of memories that come make her eyes water.

Olaf falls onto the bubble-wrap envelope and curls up in a ball.

She takes a deep breath and moves over to her desk, pulling out a pen and a piece of paper.

_Anna_, she writes.

_I have a cat. His name is Olaf. He likes warm hugs, so I thought it was a fitting name. I am considering getting another cat to keep him company while I am at work…_

It's not easy to open communication, but Elsa tries her best over the next six months. Anna's letters are always long, and Elsa's are short, but eventually phone numbers are exchanged and texting replaces handwritten letters.

Elsa explains her fear, the origin of it, but she also tells Anna that she knows it was an accident, and that knowing doesn't cure the anxiety. Anna is surprisingly understanding and says only that it will be okay because she will help her work through it. For as long as it takes.


	9. brief is life, but love is long

**09- (brief is life, but love is long)**

Elsa is interrupted by a knock on the door. She puts down the feather toy—that Marshmallow was ignoring and Olaf was failing to catch anyway—and answers it.

To her surprise, on the other side of the door is Anna and someone she only recognizes from the one or two pictures that had been sent to her phone (usually accompanied by little hearts or emoticons).

"Kristoff," Anna says right away, "this is Elsa, my sister, the badass executive assistant." But before Elsa can even smile at Kristoff, Anna is halfway into her apartment on the floor with the cats going, "Ohhh, Kristoff has a dog, but no cats. Kristoff, aren't they cute? Oh, Elsa, I know _this_ one has to be Marshmallow! Your pictures did _not_ do his chubbiness justice _at all_! And this guy is Olaf, oh he's perfect, look at the freckle on his nose!"

"Um," Elsa says, and flashes Kristoff a little smile before she turns back to Anna. "Well. Hello."

"Hi, yourself." Anna grins from her spot on the floor, rubbing Marshmallow's belly. "As if I was going to let you be alone for Thanksgiving. Elsa, _please_. Kristoff and I will be cooking. _Also_, I hope you know that you're going to come with _us_ for Christmas. Kristoff's family has the _best food_ and they all _sing_—it's great. You'll love it. Right, Kristoff?"

"If you enjoy being forced to sing," he grumbles, but he's smiling.

"Okay," Elsa agrees. "So…what are you making for Thanksgiving, then?"

"Chocolate," Anna says.

"And real food," Kristoff interjects.

"Sure, some of that, too. So, how are you?"

* * *

**End Notes:** Titles for the story and chapters are from Tennyson's "The Princess." I didn't make Olaf the cat up; my younger sister found him on Petfinder (he looked like he was always ready to say, "It's like a little baby unicorn," so he was perfect). Special thanks to NicPie for being kind enough to drop so many comments. :)

My first and last attempt at a _Frozen_ AU. (I think.) Feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading!


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